CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-23935 — Discourse is an open-source messaging platform

Medium CVSS 4.3

Discourse is an open-source messaging platform. In versions 3.0.1 and prior on the `stable` branch and versions 3.1.0.beta2 and prior on the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches, the count of personal messages displayed for a tag is a count of all personal messages regardless of whether the personal message is visible to a given user. As a result, any users can technically poll a sensitive tag to determine if a new personal message is created even if the user does not have access to the personal message. In the patched versions, the count of personal messages tagged with a given tag is hidden by default. To revert to the old behaviour of displaying the count of personal messages for a given tag, an admin may enable the `display_personal_messages_tag_counts` site setting.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.3 (3.1)
Published
2023-03-16
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-200

Affected products

  • discourse / discourse
  • discourse / discourse / 1.1.0
  • discourse / discourse / 1.2.0

Showing 3 representative product identities from 208 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Information disclosure and sensitive data exposure

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace sensitive data through responses, errors, logs, metrics, traces, caches, exports, files, backups, and client bundles.
  • Identify affected subjects, tenants, retention windows, access controls, and downstream copies without opening unnecessary sensitive records.
  • Review metadata, timing, status, length, and existence signals as well as direct content disclosure.

Remediate safely

  • Minimize collection and output, apply field-level authorization and redaction at a centralized boundary, and return generic external errors.
  • Remove secrets and sensitive data from logs, artifacts, URLs, caches, and client-side bundles; rotate credentials that may have been exposed.
  • Update the affected component and add synthetic-data tests for response, error, observability, and export paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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